Ahmad Sa’adat, imprisoned Palestinian national leader, was transferred from Shata prison to Hadarim prison, where he was placed in collective isolation in retaliation for his comments in court on Sunday, said former prisoner Allam Kaabi said on Tuesday, September 11. Kaabi was deported to Gaza in the October 2011 prisoner exchange.
Kaabi said that this movement came in retaliation for Sa’adat’s comments in court on Sunday, September 9 in Jerusalem, when he rejected as illegitimate the occupation courts and called for occupation officials to be put on trial for their crimes against the Palestinian people. Sa’adat is the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
When Sa’adat was transferred to Hadarim, fellow imprisoned PFLP leader Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh who was held in Hadarim prison, was then transfered to Shata prison. The “collective isolation” in Hadarim prison is a small group of prisoners held together and separate from the larger Palestinian prisoner population. Sa’adat was in isolation for over three years, from March 2009 through May 2012, and was released from isolation as part of the agreement ending the April-May 2012 hunger strike.
Kaabi said that the Israeli Prison Services were determined that Sa’adat and Abu Ghoulmeh would not meet in the same prison. He said that “all of the Zionist practices against leaders like Sa’adat and Abu Ghoulmeh, and all prisonrs in Israeli jails, will fail because the will, determination and steadfastness of the prisoners is much greater than those of the jailer.”
